Hercules and the Nemean Lion

c. 1566

Nicolò Boldrini

Artist, Italian, born c. 1510, active c. 1530 - c. 1570

Raphael

Artist After, Marchigian, 1483 - 1520

Nicolò Boldrini, after Raphael

Attributed to

Printed with black lines and shading on buff-colored paper, a nude, muscular man wrestles a lion in a landscape in this horizontal woodcut. The man and animal’s bodies curl around each other in the lower right quadrant of the scene. The man reaches over the back of the lion’s neck as the latter claws and the man’s leg. They battle on a path that runs across the picture from behind tall trees along the left edge of the composition and beyond rocky ground with scrubby plants along the bottom edge. A club leans against a stone in the lower right corner. Hills and trees roll back in space, reaching the top edge along the way. Closer inspection reveals the back end of a second lion going into a cave near the right edge of the woodcut. An inscription is included on a long rock along the bottom edge of the print. It reads, “RAPHAEL VR. INV.”

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    woodcut on laid paper (line block from chiaroscuro woodcut)

  • Credit Line

    Gift of James A. Bergquist, Boston, in Honor of Peter Parshall

  • Dimensions

    block: 30.6 × 41.5 cm (12 1/16 × 16 5/16 in.)
    sheet: 32.9 × 43.5 cm (12 15/16 × 17 1/8 in.)

  • Accession Number

    2014.48.1

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Passavant, no. 18


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(James A. Bergquist, Boston); gift to NGA, 2014.

Associated Names

Bibliography

1802

  • Bartsch, Adam. Le peintre graveur. 21 vols. Vienna, 1802-1821: Adam. Le peintre graveur. 21 vols. Vienna: J.V. Degen, 1802-1821: no. 18

1860

  • Passavant, Johann David. Le peintre-graveur, contenant l'histoire de la gravure sur bois, sur metalet au buring jusque vers la fin du XVI siecle .... 6 vols. Leipzig: Rudolph Weigel, 1860-1864: no. 18

Inscriptions

lower right in block: RAPHAEL.VR.INV; by later hand, lower left verso in graphite:[not deciphered]; by later hand, lower right verso in ink: 84

Wikidata ID

Q77007072


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